


Into The Woods And Out Of The Woods And Home Before Dark

by Not_You



Category: Watchmen (Comic), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Family Feels, Fix-It, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, Peril, Rescue, Rorschach Feels, Secret Identity, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 13:51:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3770626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a kinkmeme prompt to fix the brilliant and horrifying anti-fixit 'What Cats Know.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into The Woods And Out Of The Woods And Home Before Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [What Cats Know](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/109723) by Slipstream. 



> Text in italics is verbatim from 'What Cats Know.'

Dan really shouldn't be here. Not right now, not like this, but he's never been so scared for his partner in his life. It seems dumb to worry about Rorschach, but no matter how hard the man tries to be the mask, he's not sleeping, and this Roche thing is eating him up inside. Eating Dan up too, and so he's prowling around down here by day without the protection of Nite Owl, on something between a hunch and pure mystical bullshit. There's something bad about this place, and a thousand thousand fragments too small to even dream of being leads have drained into that badness, left him here on the sidewalk about to turn back and walk to some place a cab will stop, feeling like a fool.

And then there she is. Little Blair Roche. Little missing-presumed-dead-by-everyone-but-Rorschach Blair Roche. The kid's a mess, covered in tears and snot and dirt, but she's fucking beautiful, running down the sidewalk to him on tiny bare feet, lank hair flying. She actually runs into him before she can stop, and screams when he automatically puts his arms around her.

"Hey," he murmurs, "hey, it's okay. It's okay, honey."

She relaxes for about half a second, then sets up a high, helpless keening that pierces his eardrums and his heart at the same time. "He's still there! He's still there and the monster's got him!" She looks up with huge eyes, and he can see that not all the terror is for herself.

"What?"

"He found me and now the monster has him and I wanna go home!" She wails and buries her face in his chest and Dan goes ice-cold with the thermometer at ninety. He can't ask her too many questions, god knows what's happened to the poor kid, but he kneels on the baking sidewalk to look her in the eye.

"Okay. I'm gonna get you home, but first, where's the monster?"

Blair shivers, and points the way she came. "I ran from there." Tears well up in her eyes again, and Dan hugs her, mind racing. Some citizen hero is apparently in the clutches of this fiend in human form, and no way in hell is Dan going to leave him there. Of course, he also can't leave Blair standing on the sidewalk. He looks around, and for once God is merciful, and there's a payphone. Covered in graffiti and beat all to hell, but it works. He doesn't call the police. Can't even think to. Quarter goes in, other arm holds terrified child. Quarter hand punches numbers. Ringing.

"Hollis Mason." And even now is it good to hear his voice, the original Nite Owl, the guy who knows how to do this.

"Hollis, I'm standing next to a payphone with Blair Roche and whoever had her has someone else now."

There's no further response. Just a click, and Dan calls back. There's no answer, and the ringing goes on forever. Or that's what it feels like anyway. He hangs up and does his best not to communicate the hopelessness or impatience he feels to Blair, who seems for the moment content to cling. It feels like forever, but really it can't be more than ten minutes before Archie hoves into view. Dan can't help but stare slackjawed as the ship wobbles into place above them and drops a line. The sound Archie makes while hovering is certainly less smooth than usual, but the ladder only wobbles a little, and Dan swarms up it with Blair in his arms to find Hollis at the console, wearing a torn spare suit of Dan's that bags around him and looking a little sheepish. Dan can't help but grin from ear to ear before he remembers that it's not over yet.

"Get her home," he says, and is out and down again in a second, hoping Blair won't get hysterical with another strange man, but confident that Hollis can handle it. For himself, he can only hope he's in time to save the savior.

_He wakes to a world still grey and shifting, the only certainty the hard press of naked floorboards against his back. Tries to rub at his eyes, clear his vision, but can’t find his hands. Should be attached to his arms, but even those feel distant, as disconnected from reality as the stars._

_Slowly regains feeling. Finds his fingers first, hot pinpricks under his nails and deep in his knuckles. He recognizes the sensation of circulation-starved digits, flexes, and yes, those are his wrists, stretched above his head and bound together tightly with thick, rough rope._

_Sure now of the location of at least two of his limbs, he attempts to takes stock of the rest of himself, but the agonizing mess of his head drowns out all other complaints, his brain crammed into a skull seemingly two sizes too small. Nose certainly broken, airway clogged with blood. Vision still muddy, offering only brief, spotty images of a water-stained ceiling, but hearing sharp, feeding him the repeating, sharp scrape of metal honing metal. Ringing muffled, though, by distance and drywall. Grice in the next room, then. He pushes clumsily with his feet, managing to raise himself up on his shoulders a few shaking inches before his legs give out on him. Hnnh. Problematic._

_Forces himself to rest, regain what strength he can._

Fuck, Dan can only hope the girl didn't turn. He asked her, but being six and fucking terrified, she hadn't been sure. Still, this is starting to look right. Or horribly wrong. She had said something about dogs, and sure enough, two start barking. Peeking through the fence, he sees huge German Shepherds, and shudders at the macabre thought of how effective they could be for body disposal. He's not sure how much damage they'll do, but he's got to get past them. He's running out of time. May have already run out and just be looking for some cold meat that used to be a good man, but it's no good to think like that. How to avoid performing rescue or salvage with nearly two hundred pounds of dog on him is.

The answer is actually surprisingly easy. Or maybe he's just completely high right now. Time seems to move so slowly. It's easy to scale the splintery fence, and it doesn't hurt. It's easy to cram his jacket into one gaping maw and follow it with a kick that sends its own staggering and wheezing away, fighting to spit out its wad of denim. The other gets a pretty good grip on his calf, but he doesn't have time for that shit. Doesn't even feel it, because he can hear the thud and drag of someone moving an inert body and suddenly through the calm comes a geyser of rage. He's almost disappointed when the dog gives up after only three brutal punches to the head and an ear-twist that makes it yipe like a puppy and makes Daniel Dreiberg the animal lover a bit sick somewhere deep down inside.

No time for that. Up the dingy steps, one-two-seven, and then a kick to the door that leaves it wide open and decorated with a little spray of blood. He can't feel it, but it must be a souvenir from the Shepherd. Other problems now. Like the man and the monster before him. They both look human, but since one is binding the other bloody and beaten to the leg of a heavy stove, Dan is pretty sure which is which.

Walter blinks blood-tacky lashes, not really here or there but just barely hearing a voice that isn't Grice's. It's familiar, so familiar, and it's saying...

"You sick son of a bitch!" Nite Owl generally does not swear aloud, but Daniel Dreiberg has seen the knives. The chopping block, the half-erection at having something small and helpless again even if it's not exactly what he wants, and he is not Nite Owl. Not now. Maybe not ever again, but he can't think. Doesn't want to think.

Walter doesn't know if it's a dog or Grice or her, but there's nothing he can do about it. He can only hear the sound, deep, dark, and full of rage, and then there's some kind of tumult above him. Something about falling bodies and thudding that might be impacts on the floor or just in his head, and more roaring. The dogs are barking outside, and everything goes dark again.

"Okay." Dan says softly, standing in the room, so quiet now. The dogs are barking outside, but it seems more distant than it is. There's a bloody throwing crescent in his hand, and he's a murderer. Maybe he can handle that, maybe he can't. It's imperative to do something, though. Stillness invites reflection, so he strips off his shirt and runs cold water on it from the rusty tap. He wipes Grice's blood on the dry end even though it's a stupid, stupid thing to do, and goes to cut the rope, tenderly wiping the blood away. He can feel a small smile on his lips, and wonders what in the hell his face is doing that for, if his mind has snapped. But really, it's pure fondness. This guy has to weigh a good sixty pounds less than his attacker, and he held his own long enough to get Blair out. He's a redheaded little scrapper, face busted up and a stab wound that Dan is glad to bind up. It gives him something to do with his hands. He watches them work and supposes what is really is is that he's horrified at not being horrified. He's just cut a man's throat. The guy is still over there in a pool of blood, but seriously, fuck him. Fuck him and Dan hopes that if there are any previous Blaires no one could save that they gang up and rip him apart on the other side.

"Hey." It's soft and gentle, and no one speaks gently to Walter. "Hey, wake up. You're safe now, buddy, just hang on." And he does hang on, dizzy as strong arms scoop him up and it can't be Daniel. It can't be, but the scent and the strength are the same, and he's had dreams with this in them. Usually without the broken nose, though. "She's safe too." The voice goes on and on, encouragement and endearments, a steady, soothing stream of babble that isn't true, about how Walter is brave and strong and good. He hopes the part about Blaire is true as it all goes black again.

Hollis still has a few unmasked connections. What goes on the record is this: Walter Kovacs killed Gerald Grice in self-defense. There are a few questions, but Hollis's grey gaze cuts their throats as surely as Grice's, and really, with Blaire Roche still alive and still a virgin the general tone is one of gratitude.

Walter Kovacs has no health insurance and no money and scares the hell out of the hospital staff by waking up in a fog of pain medication and trying to escape, but Dan is there. Catches his shoulders, tells him yes, yes, Blaire is safe, has been safe, and steers him back to bed. He's been here the whole time, Walter finds out, listening and pretending to sleep. He really sleeps, wakes again, and his partner is still there. Wakes again to the touch of a tiny hand on his own.

"'Nk you," says a voice that's just as tiny, and he cracks his eyes open to see her, all clean and brushed like she should be. Her dress is blue, and has a white rabbit on it. Her mother looks just like her, and it's Rorschach who promised to bring her child home, so he can't even look at her, but then there's a rain of tears on his face and the haze of her scent so close. She actually kisses his forehead, and thanks him until her voice gives out and his head is spinning. The nurse comes in and ushers them out, and it's quiet. There's less pain now, and Daniel is still there. Walter swallows around the lump in his throat, croaks.

"Hang on, hang on..." A minute later Daniel is propping him up and giving Walter a glass of water he drinks so fast a quarter of it pours down his chin. "Better?"

"Yes." He looks into those dark, honest eyes, and tries to see the person reflected there. Daniel just looks back as inscrutable as a real owl, then leans down. Close and then closer, until he's about as near as Mrs. Roche, lips almost brushing Walter's ear. "I didn't wanna find out who you really are like this, buddy, but I'm glad I know," he whispers, words and breath making Walter shudder for reasons he can't begin to name, all jumbled and tangled. Shame and remorse and something that could almost be lust, he doesn't know. Some anger too, a wounded animal's lashing out at a helping hand.

"Didn't want you to, either," he mutters, and Daniel leans back with his arm over his face and Walter doesn't know if he's laughing or crying.


End file.
